In the past few years it has been the norm, whether still under the name 1. FFC or now as Eintracht Frankfurt, that the Bundesliga season rippled towards a leisurely end. In the final arc of the season for the Hessians it was mostly just about the meaningless places between fourth and sixth. At the end of the last round, there was still the DFB Cup final, which Eintracht narrowly lost after extra time. Now there is finally something to win again in the final spurt in the league. In a “final without anything being decided yet”, as sporting director Siegfried Dietrich puts it.
Mon – Fri at 4 p.m.; Sat – Sun at 6 p.m
SIGN IN
And yet for the SBU this Saturday (2 p.m. in the live stream at sportschau.de) at Turbine Potsdam, the work and direction of an entire season is at stake. A win is needed in a game with a special constellation – currently a direct duel for participation in the Champions League, in the past an almost eternal duel for all women’s football merits that could be won.
Between 2004 and 2006, the two faced each other three times in a row (and again in 2011) in the DFB Cup final, in 2006 even in the UEFA Cup final, and they fought bitter duels for the championship for years. Dietrich was the sole head of the FFC at the time when it was rich in titles. “It brings back a lot of memories for me,” says the 64-year-old, who no longer bears full responsibility since the merger with Eintracht. “We wouldn’t have gotten so good back then if Turbine hadn’t been so strong.”
“The future belongs to the license clubs”
At that time, Dietrich carried out a feud with his Potsdam counterpart Bernd Schröder, which the media liked to exaggerate for a long time. That’s when the women’s football worlds collided: the supposedly rich from the banking city, who attracted the best players, against the supposedly poor Potsdam women, who trained players in their sports school. When licensed clubs such as Bayern Munich and VfL Wolfsburg began to divide the titles among themselves, the purely women’s football clubs reached their limits with their business model.
As is well known, the FFC entourage slipped under Eintracht. “I have great respect for Potsdam as the last pure women’s football club in the top group. But the future, and all the numbers point to it, belongs to the licensing clubs,” says Dietrich and predicts: “After we’ve been slowed down by the pandemic, the values in terms of TV, marketing and viewership will double within the next three years.” With the license associations as drivers of development.
It would be a bitter punchline for Eintracht if Turbine Potsdam, which operates under much worse conditions, were to snatch the longed-for affiliation with the club of the big ones, the Champions League, from under their noses.
Two games before the end, the Brandenburgers, who are also in the cup final, occupy third place – with a lead of three points and a much better goal difference than Eintracht. In other words, only one win counts. But even then the matter is not scratched: It can be assumed that Eintracht defeated Werder Bremen on the last day of the game at home. The fact that the turbines would have no chance at Bayern Munich in the season finale could still turn out to be a miscalculation, because the match could be meaningless for the then probably dethroned champion.
“It will depend above all on effectiveness and mentality. We are the hunters in this game and we have to go into the game with courage, optimism and belief in ourselves,” says head coach Niko Arnautis. Midfielder Barbara Dunst reports: “Knowing that we still have a chance of third place lit a fire in every player. We’re really keen on overcoming the final hurdles.”
